


Fair Games

by fuzzballsheltiepants



Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: And a Panda Stuffie, Carnival, Fluff, Just tooth-rotting fluff, Like I can't believe I wrote this, M/M, Neil's really good at games, No angst at all, and bad at double entendres, goldfish
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-03
Updated: 2018-07-03
Packaged: 2019-06-01 15:48:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,062
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15146471
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fuzzballsheltiepants/pseuds/fuzzballsheltiepants
Summary: Neil and Andrew attend a carnival on a whim.  Neil's got really good aim and Andrew cheats.





	Fair Games

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to Nicole @tntwme for both the idea and the beta!!

It was the last weekend before classes started, and Neil had been relieved to sneak away for a night with Andrew.  He didn’t want to admit it, but the freshmen were driving him absolutely insane.  If Jack didn’t end up as target practice before the third game, it would be a miracle.  Neil was still undecided if he’d rather use a gun or knives.  Knives gave him more nightmares, but he’d be able to draw it out longer.  
  
At least Andrew had been able to distract him.  His body still felt strangely loose from being taken apart by Andrew’s hands and mouth.  He wondered if Andrew felt the same way; it was impossible to tell, he looked as composed as always.  
  
They were nearly to campus when he saw it: the ferris wheel towering over town.  “I forgot the carnival was here,” he said.    
  
Andrew glanced at him.  “Let me guess, you’ve never been.”  
  
“No, I’ve been to carnivals before.”  He thought for a moment, remembering he and his mother losing themselves in a crowd with one of his father’s men in pursuit.  “Never been on any of the rides, though.”  
  
With an aggrieved sigh, Andrew slowed down and hit the blinker.  A couple of minutes later they were parking the Maserati in some rutted field full of pickups and minivans and tromping through the grass towards the booths.  There were rows upon rows of games, food stands, bumper cars, a tilt-a-whirl, and a big carousel next to the ferris wheel.  Neil walked along, scanning everything until he realized he’d lost Andrew.  Turning around, he spotted him in front of a large machine and walked back to him.  
  
Andrew walked around the machine, which looked to be divided into eight different sections, watching for a few minutes while people dropped coins into the slots and exclaimed.  One kid squealed and grabbed a handful of coins from an opening down below then skipped off towards a woman in a dress.  Andrew slipped into his spot and pulled a handful of quarters out of his pocket.    
  
Neil stepped closer to watch.  There were dollar bills, mostly ones but also two tens and a twenty, dangling over the edge of the chute.  Only coins resting on the edges of the bills held them in place.  A drawer filled with coins slid in and out, pushing the other money inexorably towards the chute.  Andrew watched the timing of the drawer, and just as it hit a certain point he dropped a coin in the slot.  It bounced and landed on the edge of the drawer.  Another coin, and as the drawer closed both coins fell off the edge.  The drawer opened, and the coins were shoved into the other money.  A few quarters dropped down the chute, but the bills remained.  
  
This process repeated for about five minutes, Andrew timing the drops differently depending on the arrangements of coins and which slot he chose.  Neil realized after a couple of minutes that Andrew was building up a coin pool in one specific area of the base.  He finally dropped two coins in quick succession, the drawer closed, then opened, and a dozen quarters and two bills dropped into the chute.  He pulled them out and turned away.  Neil caught up with him a few paces away.  
  
“Thirty-four-fifty for a three dollar investment,” Andrew said, pocketing it.  “Should fund your rides.”  
  
But first, snacks.  Andrew downed most of a frozen lemonade, fried dough, and a deep-fried Oreo before they finally made it to the games.  Neil went through the booths, watching the bored carnival employees trying to draw people in.  His eye was caught by one game, where a large man was trying to pop balloons with a dart.  The man went through three rounds before he finally hit a balloon and earned a small fuzzy dog that he handed off to the woman with him, bragging about his aim.  
  
When the couple was out of earshot, Neil let himself scoff.  “What an asshole, that game is not that hard.”    
  
Andrew raised an eyebrow at him.  “Most of these games are fixed.”  
  
“I bet I can win on my first try.”  
  
“The Foxes are a terrible influence on you,” Andrew said, shaking his head in mock disappointment.  “What’s your bet?”  
  
Neil hummed.  “If I win, you have to get your face painted.”  He had noticed that half the children under ten had various animals painted on them.  
  
“And if you lose?”  Andrew asked.  Neil shrugged and Andrew answered his own question.  “If you lose, you have to get rid of two of your oversized shirts.  And I choose the shirts.”  
  
Neil paid his dollar to the young man who was chewing gum vigorously as he explained the game in an accent so broad he suspected it was fake.  “One balloon gets ya a little stuffie, two gets ya a medium one, three balloons in a row and ya win one a them big ‘uns, ‘kay?”  
  
Neil nodded and played a little with the dart, feeling the balance of it.  It had looked like a game that was impossible to fix, but the darts were weighted oddly.  He flipped one in his hand once, twice.  Andrew was watching with his usual non-expression.  He took a deep breath to center himself, feeling his feet connect with the ground.  One throw and a loud pop.  A quick glance at Andrew showed that faint golden gleam he sometimes got in his eyes.  Breathe; throw; pop.  Neil felt the smile he had reclaimed from his father start to spread across his face.  Another throw; another pop.   
  
“Wow,” the guy said, accent gone.  “Never seen anyone get all three on the first try.”  
  
“Beginner’s luck, I guess,” Neil said.  He heard Andrew’s derisive snort behind him and accepted the enormous panda bear the guy handed him.  But Andrew didn’t bitch when they crossed to the face painting booth.  Neil wanted him to be a fox, but Andrew insisted on a cat.  He sat unflinchingly as the bubbly high school girl drew whiskers, ears, and a nose on his face.  When the girl was finished, she turned to Neil expectantly and he found himself sitting down on the stool.  Andrew just shook his head as he watched the girl add the bright orange ears and muzzle to Neil’s face.  
  
“Fucking junkie.”   
  
Settling the panda on his hip, Neil strolled a little further.  They came to the carousel and he turned to Andrew.  “Want to take a ride?” he asked.  Andrew wordlessly gave the girl in charge the prescribed number of tickets and trailed Neil and the panda onto the carousel.  After a brief episode trying to wrestle the bear into submission on one of the horse’s backs, Neil gave up and joined Andrew on one of the benches instead.  His hand found Andrew’s and Andrew took it without looking at him.  Organ music blared as the ride began spinning, and Neil watched as the world around them went by in a blur of color and sound.  When the ride finished, Andrew picked up the bear and tossed it over his shoulder so he was wearing it like a backpack.  Neil followed him off; a part of him wished they could have gone again.  
  
Across the way were the bumper cars and Andrew headed directly for them.  Neil couldn’t help but laugh when Andrew wedged the enormous bear into his car with him.  He laughed even harder when Andrew chased him unsmiling across the floor, the bear’s enormous head jerking forward every time they crashed.  
  
When they were done, they wandered in the opposite direction, finding a whole different set of booths.  Neil paused at one that was a bunch of little fish bowls and ping pong balls.  There was a whole lineup of sad-looking live goldfish in bags on the counter; one of them was white with bright orange spots.  He stepped up and paid his dollar.  
  
The openings to the fish bowls were only slightly larger than the ping pong balls.  His first throw bounced out.  Sighing, he tossed the second.  This one ricocheted off and nearly landed in a different bowl but ended up stuck in between bowls.  He glanced at the orange-and-white fish.  It was looking at him.  Gritting his teeth, he tossed again.  
  
“What the hell are we going to do with a fish?” Andrew asked as they walked away, carrying the fish in a plastic bag.    
  
“It can be our mascot.  We can stop on the way home and get it a tank and stuff.”  
  
“One hundred and six percent.”  
  
They were at the far end of the carnival when Andrew fixed his attention on something.  Neil craned to see what it was and found it: a smiling wooden cow.  He followed Andrew closer and realized it was a milking game.  “What the actual fuck?”  
  
Andrew didn’t bother to reply, just paid the man and sat on one of the stools.  He looked expectantly at Neil until he took the other one.  Two empty metal pails were placed in front of them, and on the man’s signal they began squeezing the bright pink rubber teats that hung down in front of them.  It took them both a few tries to get the hang of how to squeeze the rubber so the “milk” sprayed into the bucket, and by the time Neil had it down Andrew was ahead.  Neil upped the tempo of his squeezes, until he had nearly caught up.  He squeezed faster.  
  
A quick spray of warm liquid in his face had him startling back; he reached to wipe it off but remembered his face paint just in time.  “Asshole,” he said.  
  
“Winning asshole,” Andrew corrected, as the fake udder emptied and they compared pails.  Neil flipped him off and he could have sworn a smile flickered across Andrew’s face.  
  
The sun was beginning to set, and they started back towards the carnival’s entrance.  As they passed the fish booth, Neil hesitated.  Several more fish had been won, but there was another orange-and-white one that he hadn’t noticed before, and one that was pale gold.    
  
“Oh, for fuck’s sake, junkie,” Andrew said, but he held out his hand for the fish bag.    
  
When they finally got back to the entrance, Andrew was eating another fried dough with the bear still slung over his shoulder, and Neil was gripping the tied off openings of three bags of goldfish.  “Neil?”   
  
He turned when he heard his name to see Nicky, Aaron, Katelyn, Matt, and Dan standing in line to buy ride tickets.  Five jaws dropped when they saw them.  “Nice fox,” Dan said in admiration.  
  
“I dunno,” Nicky said, “I think I like the kitty better.”  
  
“Why are you wet?” Matt asked Neil.  
  
“Andrew squirted on me,” Neil said.  Matt and Dan both looked startled, Nicky went off in peals of laughter, Katelyn got a fit of the giggles, and Aaron looked vaguely disgusted.  Andrew smacked Neil lightly in the back of his head.  “What?  We were playing that game where you see who can milk the cow the fastest, and Andrew sprayed me in the face.  I couldn’t wipe it off without ruining the paint.”  Matt and Dan both cracked up and suddenly Neil realized what he had said.  He felt the blood rise in his cheeks and glanced at Andrew; he was rewarded with a flicker of amusement in those hazel eyes.  
  
Katelyn was the first to regain control.  “It sounds like you guys had a good time,” she said in a strangled voice.  “You heading home now?”  
  
They said their good-byes and got back in the Maserati.  Neil seatbelted the panda in the back while Andrew shook his head.  “Thank you,” Neil said, as they narrowly avoided scraping the bottom of the car off against the ruts.  “That was…nice.”  
  
Andrew didn’t say anything until they turned onto the road.  “Come on,” he said.  “We still have to get your fucking fish a place to live.”  
  
“I half expected you to just flush them down the toilet,” Neil said, squinting against the glare of the setting sun.  
  
“That’s not off the table.  I’m not cleaning a goddamn fish tank.”  
  
Neil looked at the trio of fish bobbing up and down in their bags, mouths opening and closing silently.  “It’s all right, guys,” he said.  “We’re going home.”  
  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> Hope you guys enjoy! The cow thing is real, you can see a video of it [here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MqFdi7zaOB4).


End file.
